Too Many Days
by LCFC
Summary: Coda to Mystery Spot - Sam can't live without Dean - again


_There is going to be millions of these but the episode affected me too much for me to leave it alone._

_Coda for Mystery Spot – so therefore spoilers aplenty for that episode!!_

_I don't own Sam or Dean._

The whiskey is cheap and it burns. I take a large swallow and my eyes water, salt tears pouring hotly down my cheeks.

The bottle is nearly empty and the room is whirling. I try to stand up but my legs won't work and I wobble, unsteady, until strong arms hook under mine and haul upwards, a voice that is only just on the right side of irritated, close in my ear.

"Shit Sammy".

My legs drag along, feet tripping, knees buckling and I giggle, the strong scent of whiskey clinging to my clothing. Beside me, Dean holds steady, an arm around my waist, one on my shoulder. He sounds angry when he speaks, but I know enough to recognise concern hidden deep within the anger.

"If you puke on my upholstery – I'm throwing your drunken ass into the road."

The motel bed is rough and hard beneath my back and I let my legs hang over the edge. Dean kneels down, pulling off boots, socks and jeans, leaving me in just boxers and a shirt. Covers are pulled over my body and a soft voice hisses through my brain as it wavers.

"Just how many Tuesdays did you have?"

0-0-0

I wake up over the toilet bowl, whiskey tasting puke thick in my throat. Dean stands over me, rubbing a hand on the base of my spine, fingers playing lightly on the scar that Jake gave me, the scar that took my life and cost my brothers.

"Guess strong, cheap whiskey wasn't such a good idea, Sammy," Dean sounds pissed again and I feel guilt worming its way through my fuzzy head and churning guts.

"I just wanted to forget," I say, throat sounding hoarse, "just wanted to feel something other than…"

I couldn't finish, couldn't go on. If I said something now, it would just end up in me spilling my guts and Dean being protective and guilty. There was so much weighing Dean down right now; he didn't need to add my problems to his, already, groaning burden.

Dean only knows about the Tuesdays. I never told him the rest. Never told him about the shooting never told him about the funeral pyre, the ashes that I carried around in the trunk of the Impala, the long, endless nights alone.

I never told him about the vampires or the demons, about the trickster and how I thought, for one heart-stopping moment, that I had killed Bobby.

I never told him that for three fucking months I was alone. One half of a whole, a body with a limb ripped away. I never told him that I had died just a little bit more every single day that I was without him, that no amount of cheap whiskey could obliterate the feeling of utter devastation, the agonising pain, the fact that I would never see him again.

"Sammy," Dean bends over, his hands on my shoulders, gently pulling me up, wiping my face with a cloth as if I were five rather than twenty-five. He gets me a toothbrush and helps me brush my teeth, hands me a clean shirt and freshly pressed jeans.

"Sammy," he begins again, "we should…"

Talk – it is unsaid but the word hovers between us anyway. I stare at him and shake my head, slowly, once, twice, trying to bring an end to it all.

I follow him out of the room; knowing that we will go and eat breakfast, then maybe do some research, hit a bar. I walk closer to him than I normally would, brushing shoulders, keeping my eyes on him, making sure he is safe, that he doesn't eat the wrong thing, tangle with anything sinister.

He lets me, his face a mixture of exasperation and frustration. He is so used to being the protector he finds it hard to let go.

I watch him eat, sipping at a cold coffee, no appetite.

It is only now, I realise, just how much he means to me, just how much I missed him when he was gone. He is the light, the life, the purpose.

Without him, I'm nothing. It sounds cliché but it's true.

In a few months time, if I can't save him, I'm gonna have to live without him again and, this time, there won't be a trickster around to bring him back, to give me another chance.

It doesn't matter, I realise, what day it is, what week, what month, what year. Dean is an all consuming thing and, if I can't save him, then my life, for all intents and purposes is over.

We are Sam and Dean, Dean and Sam. We don't exist on our own, there cannot be one, it seems, without the other.

Dean gives me a grin, mouth full of bacon, a dribble of ketchup decorating his chin. "Want a pancake, Sammy?"

It isn't much, but it is enough and I take what is offered.

And there, in the scummy diner, miles away from the Mystery spot and the trickster and Asia, I make my most solemn vow.

I'm going to save Dean, whatever it takes.

End


End file.
